His canny green eyes scanned the gloom. Row upon row of decaying pews, forgotten statues and graffiti-scrawled frescos that took on a horrible and lurid cast in the moonlight. Then in a flash of lightning from the approaching storm he saw her. It took him a moment to adjust. A silent figure stood staring at him through the dusk-flecked air near the main entrance. He knew her face in a moment.

“Aimee?” He said in a low uncertain voice, lowering his makeshift weapon and taking a few steps forward. “I thought you went out to Cali, what the hell are … you… doing… here?”

The phantom stood motionless in the gloom, only partially visible in the strands of moonlight. Less certainly now “Aimee?” Another lightning flash. It looked like her but Johnny knew – that was not his sister.

The figure stepped from the deep shadows into a moonbeam. “You’re not Aimee.” Johnny growled, and hoisted the candlestick like a stickball bat.

“No.” The figure glided towards him with an unnatural perfection. It stopped just out of reach. For all the world she … it… looked like his kid sister. “But I’ve found over the years this was the only form I could take to keep you from attacking me. I tried elderly wisdom and childlike innocence. Neither prevented your fists or the razor you keep in your boot from attempting to violate me. I even tried Randolph Scott and Marilyn Monroe.”

There was a long, awkward pause, as if the thing was waiting for a response. Johnny remained tense and raised the candlestick a little higher.

“The results were much the same.” It said with a tinge of disappointment.